Victims
by Avon
Summary: . Loxton gets to try his hand at a spot of social work while following up on a report of a missing neighbour.


Disclaimer: This is in no way intended to infringe copyright held by Pearson, Thames or anyone else. All the police officers are, unfortunately, all theirs. 

Credit where credit is due department: Grateful thanks to Brummie, Bubbles and Marcus plus sundry other people who have answered pleas for info.

Short description: This story is set back in the early eighties. Burnside is Sun Hill's DI, Alec Peters is one of the relief's sergeants, Delia French is a new WPC, Cath Marshall is alive and Norika Datta, Ted Roach and Steve Loxton are still at Sun Hill. Loxton gets to try his hand at a spot of social work while following up on a report of a missing neighbour.

Main Characters: Loxton

Title: Victims

Cryer finished the list of duties and glanced around the parade room. Uncle Bob they called him, when they thought he wasn't listening, and he did feel they all belonged to him - from Delia, still bubbling, almost too bubbling, with enthusiasm, to Loxton, white-faced and shagged-out looking on the other side of the half circle. Cryer's lips tightened a fraction. Too often Loxton looked like that, after a night spent screwing around. You couldn't teach some of them.

Cryer's voice was tighter that it would have been for others as he prodded Loxton verbally, "And Loxton, that woman in Havell St with the missing neighbour - around there first, yeah?"

"Yes, Sarge," said Loxton with his voice, as usual, on the faint edge of insolence.  
Cryer was about to dismiss the parade when Monroe pushed through the door.   
"Right, pay attention. Inspector Monroe would like a word."

Cryer stepped a little closer to Delia to allow Monroe to take his place.

"Thanks, Bob. I'd like to commend a course to your attention. It's called -" he glanced briefly at the paper he held - "Children as Victims - the Police's Role in Support"

"Plonks' course," Loxton muttered to his neighbour.

Monroe glanced across, and then ignored him. 

"This is not something that can be left to social workers or community liaison officers - or even to female officers." Monroe paused for a moment, eyeing some of the less-than- enthusiastic faces in front of him.

"Every day you see children who are victims. The closer you are to the 'sharp end' - " he quoted their phrase back at them with a sardonic look - "the more you are going to encounter. We might not be able to prevent them being victims, but at least we can prevent them being our victims."

Loxton rolled his eyes and Monroe pounced.  
"I can put you down, can I, Loxton?"

Loxton forced a politeness he didn't feel. "With respect, sir, it's not something I'm going to need."

Monroe raised his eyebrows and Steve Loxton tensed a little. He straightened, as though to attention; a hang-over from his army days that he'd never lost. Gods, he didn't need this either. There'd been another row this morning - about the gambling and the girls, as usual. He hadn't eaten and he could still taste the bitter sickness of anger in his stomach. Monroe was stringing out the moment and across the circle Delia was grinning at him like the stupid cow that she was.

When the reply came it was Monroe at his most sarcastic. 

"So I take it you've never, in all of your life, encountered a child who was a victim?"

Unexpectedly, memory struck and Loxton heard again the crash of glass and the raw- edged voices, one a low-voiced litany of mumbled foul words and curses, the other high and shrieking and breaking in anger. For a moment he was there again, huddled shaking against the bedroom door he couldn't bear to close, sweat-damp in his pyjamas. He swallowed and dropped his eyes from Monroe.

"Sir."

It could have meant anything, but Monroe let it pass.

"Right," he said, turning back to the parade and putting down a handful of fliers. "See me before Friday, anyone who's interested."

The relief surged out of the LIO and, somewhat reluctantly, faced the heat-hazed afternoon. It was the tenth day of the heat and while the newspapers trumpeted headlines about glorious summer the streets of Sun Hill were even less inviting than usual. Street crime was up, two kids had nearly drowned swimming in one of the canals, there'd been a heat-related death - an OAP - on the weekend and three rapes this week. DS Roach swore the heat brought them out. In the midst of it all the Sun Hill officers sweated and swore and dreamed of their annual holiday. Others longed for winter, conveniently forgetting numb fingers, frozen vagrants and how they longed then for summer. 

Loxton swung angrily down the streets of his beat, heading for Havell St. One eye out for trouble he made his way through the crowded markets. A few likely looking lads leant against a pub wall, successfully intimidating most of the shoppers into giving them a wide berth. Unfortunately you couldn't, Loxton reflected bitterly, be arrested for looking like slag. The trouble, if there was going to be trouble, wouldn't start until after six when the stalls were packed away and the pubs livened up.

Havell Street was two rows of uncared for and overgrown semi-detached houses. A magnolia tree, erupting from a totally unsuitable courtyard, overshadowed number 12. From the street the house appeared deserted and uncollected milkbottles were visible in the porch. Loxton dipped his head towards his radio.

"Sierra Oscar from 363."

"Go ahead, Steve," answered Cath Marshall.

"I'm at Havell Street. Do we have the address of the neighbour?"

It only took Cath a minute. "Mrs Russell, 14 Havell Street."

Loxton grunted in acknowledgment. "Waste of bloody time this anyway - this is social work, not police work."

"Yeah, and this isn't the Donahue Show," cut in Alec Peters with his usual cheer. "No-one wants your opinion. Just do it, Steve."

With a tightening of his lips, Loxton jerked open the rusty iron gate of number 14. It was shaded by an equally huge sweet chestnut tree and the sickly smell enveloped him as he stepped into the shadowed cave of a porch. Broken red and orange tiles shifted underneath his feet and dark green paint bubbled on the door.

Loxton hammered on the door, dislodging some of the paint, and called though the letter box without raising an answer. With a shrug he headed for number 12. As luck would have it someone popped out of number 10 just as he was opening the gate. 

"Geoff?" The woman hesitated at his question, one hand on the gate. "He's not in trouble, is he?" 

"No, not trouble, no."

"I've really got to rush - bus'll be here any minute now."

She glanced down the road then reluctantly back at Loxton.   
  
"It'll only take a minute," he said, with a tightly controlled lack of patience, taking out his pocket book. "If you could just think when you remember seeing him - or if he'd mentioned going away?" 

She was a fluffy kind of woman of about forty and the sleeveless sundress she was wearing offended Loxton's natural fastidiousness. He tapped his pocketbook impatiently on his hand and prayed for an armed robbery while she thought.

"You know, I don't know if I have seen him for a week or so. Friday - he definitely put his garbage out...there's been lights though."

A bus swung round the corner into the street then. With a startled exclamation she started to trot quickly towards it. Loxton let her go and turned back to number 12 with no new enthusiasm. Dozen of routine explanations were still possible and this was still no more than social work in Loxton's opinion. 

The path was slick with half-rotted leaves and deeply shaded. Four bottles of curdled milk waited on the porch. One had been knocked over and the smell was foul. A Tesco's catalogue spilled from the letter box and two free local newspapers lay on the mat. Loxton hammered on the door and called though the letter box. Squinting through the slot he thought he caught a flicker of movement but no one responded. The smell coming from inside easily overpowered the curdled milk, though. Loxton straightened up, face set. Stepping back he cursed as he knocked another bottle of milk over. There was a frosted glass panel in the door and he used his truncheon to break it before reaching inside to open the door.

"Mr McConville?"

He thought he heard the faintest of sounds inside but no one answered. The magnolia blocked the light from the house and it took him several minutes of fumbling to locate the light switch. In here the smell was overwhelming and he didn't have much doubt about what he was going to find.

Loxton followed the smell down the hall and into the lounge room. He found the body in an armchair there in front of the television. Once it had been a man, probably of about his own age. Loxton could see no obvious injuries but decomposition made it difficult to be certain. In the heat of the closed room the smell was a physical thing, reaching back into his throat and making him gag. Fighting down the sickness that bubbled in his stomach Loxton retreated back to the hall to make his report. Peters, far removed from the smell and sight, barely abandoned his usual lightly sarcastic humour as he took the details and arranged for the sudden death circus to descend on Havell St.

The crackle of the radio with messages meant for other officers accompanied Loxton as he searched the house. The source of the smell might have varied as he stepped into the kitchen but the intensity barely did. The fridge door hung open and a variety of things were pulled out onto the floor in front of it. There were rotting vegetables and empty milk bottles adding their odour to the sour smell of unwashed dishes. Loxton grimaced at the old and bitter familiarity of it. In the rancid warmth of the kitchen he could have been back on the Manchester estate of his childhood. With a shrug he moved back to the door. He could see no connection between the mess in here and the body in the lounge room, but then that would be up to CID.

As he stepped through the door into the hall Loxton stopped, eye caught again by a flicker of movement in the half-shadowed recess of the stairs. Fully prepared to find it was only a cat Loxton still slipped the strap of his truncheon over his hand and held it as he moved slowly towards the stairs.

Four steps up from the turn in the stairs the child froze. Loxton breathed a profane word, closing his eyes for a moment, before replacing his truncheon. Slightly shaken, he stared at the child. He knew little about kids but this was small - surely too little even for school?

"Hello, son," he said, not sounding convincing even to himself. 

The boy had been crying, now he let out another exhausted wail and grubbed at his eyes with a filthy hand. Even with the stairs between them Loxton towered over the boy. Slowly he crouched down, half-kneeling on the steps. The boy still hadn't moved. Then, holding carefully to the banister, he climbed down a step. Loxton tried to look relaxed - even as his mind bubbled frantic questions. Who was the boy? What was his connection to the body in the lounge room? Had he been here - alone - for a week? The boy was watching him with a fixed intentness and his silence and stillness scared Loxton. He would much rather have been back at the markets mixing it with the gang of youths. He searched for something to say - something natural, something not connected to that 'thing' in the lounge room. There was some sort of train on the boy's t-shirt, a train with a grinning face and Loxton remembered a December lunchtime in the canteen. Dave had been showing off some t-shirts that he'd just got cheap for his nieces from a mate of his at the markets. Delia had said it was her Damien's favourite TV show. What was the thing's name?

"Nice t-shirt," Loxton said, trying to keep it casual, afraid of scaring the boy. "Thomas, isn't it?" 

The boy risked a direct glance at him and shook his head.

"James."

As though the word had broken the spell the child almost threw himself down the last two steps and wrapped his arms around Loxton's neck. Knocked off balance Loxton wavered for a moment on the edge of a step, before putting his arm around the child to balance him and swinging around to sit on a step. The boy shivered closer, burying his dirty face in Loxton's shirt. He didn't cry but Loxton could feel the pounding of his heart.

Loxton was generally considered a hard nut copper. He said good coppering came down to nicking slag - and that suited him just fine. At all times he was impatient of any hint of 'social work' such as community liaison or victim support. Driving the area car to an inch - squealing around corners in pursuit of villains - or tackling a gang of dippers Loxton was joyfully at home. His superiors might not always approve of his methods but he reckoned they had to acknowledge he got the job done. Now, however, uncertainty shivered up and down his spine as he tentatively rubbed the child's back. He clung closer and Loxton's nose crinkled at the unwashed smell. Where was backup? Children were plonk's work. He'd always said that this sort of thing was why you had skirts in the police force. It was a comfortable theory but he found it of no help when confronted by a small boy who pressed against him in a desperate closeness.

"What's your name, son?"

For a long moment there was no answer then a whispered "Jamie."

"Hello, Jamie. My name's Steve."

Somebody opened the door and there were footsteps in the hall. Loxton, who'd been talking a load, he was sure, of old fanny about cars and football, fell silent.

"Loxton?"

"In here, sir." Loxton tried to get to his feet but Monroe waved him down.

"Stay where you are, lad," Monroe said, eyebrows climbing as he looked at the two of them. 

He crouched down and touched the boy's hair.

"Who's this?"

"Jamie, sir. I reckon it's his dad who's... brown bread" Loxton jerked his head towards the lounge room.

Monroe's bulldog features hadn't altered when he came back from viewing the mess that had once been a human being. Some blowflies followed him and Monroe thought grimly that it was by the grace of God that the boy was too small for them to mean anything more than a buzzing nuisance. The house was filling up now with SOCO, a divisional surgeon and both uniform and CID officers. On his way to escort the surgeon Monroe sent Datta to take Jamie. Loxton, cramped and uncomfortable, gladly tried to hand the boy over but he screamed and clung to him. Frank Burnside, bulldozing his way through the crowded hall, paused to watch the struggle.

"Oi! He's not a Christmas cracker. What do you want - a bit each?"

Datta let go of the arm she was trying to prise loose.

"Guv."

"Go on, Loxton, get the kid out of here. I'll be out to talk to you later. Norika, you can start with the neighbours. Joe Public might surprise us."

  
At least, Loxton supposed gloomily, the fresh air was killing some of the smell. There was a murder investigation going on in there and he was stuck out on the front steps babysitting. No member of the relief had passed without a smart remark. His back ached and his neck was stiff. How did mothers stand it?

"Hey, mate, that the kid?" asked a paramedic, as he ducked under the overhanging branches of the magnolia. 

Irrationally Loxton felt his grip on the boy tighten as the other man held out his arms for him. Uncomfortable to carry he might be but the warm heaviness was becoming a part of Loxton and he felt a most unaccustomed protectiveness, even a tenderness. The shivering had stopped now and the lad's breathing evened out.

"I'll carry him out for you," he said as Monroe came through the door behind him.

"Ah, Loxton. I thought we'd lost you."

"No, sir. DI Burnside said to get him out of the house."

"I sent Datta to take him."

"He wouldn't go, sir."

Monroe surveyed the two of them and there was a faint glimpse of humour in his eyes as he studied the normally immaculate Loxton.

"Go with him to the hospital, then, but don't try to question him. I'll send Marshall up."

Half relieved and half disappointed that he wasn't to be relieved of his burden Loxton carried Jamie carefully down the bumpy path. As he climbed into the ambulance with his burden at the back of his mind was a barely remembered scrap of a story - something about an old man of the sea who grew on the person who carried him. Loxton shuddered at the thought.

  
Cath Marshall grinned at the sight that awaited her at the hospital. Steve Loxton was normally the most immaculately turned out member of the relief. Now the top button of his shirt was ripped, his uniform was dirty and crumpled and his hair was disarranged. Sulkily picking at the top of a foam cup that had contained coffee Loxton barely glanced up at her.

"Oh, you're here. About bloody time isn't it?"

Well accustomed to Loxton's manner Marshall was unruffled.

"How's Jamie, then? Monroe wants me to talk to him."

"Dehydrated; they said. I'm not a doctor. Only I reckon you're wasting your time - he's not four yet."

"Right, well I'll go and see."

Marshall dropped keys beside him.

"Monroe wants you back at the nick to write up your report. You take the panda and I'll call when I'm ready."

Loxton grunted in reply and she went briskly on her way to the nurses' station. Left alone Loxton jerked himself up out of the chair and dumped the cup on the chair beside him, oblivious to the bits of foam that spilled across the floor behind him.

  
It was soothing to be back behind the wheel, doing some proper coppering, even if it was only driving back to the nick. He drove slowly, volume up on the radio, half-hoping for a chase or something to delay him. The report was a simple enough matter of recording what he'd found as first-on-the-scene but the whole matter was tender with feelings Loxton didn't usually experience, much less acknowledge. Jamie had cried when they had taken him from him at the hospital, cried and grabbed at his shirt, tearing a button. Loxton had tried to feel anger, or at least relief his burden was gone, but even as he'd stretched cramped muscles and been ushered out the door he'd felt bereaved. For nearly two hours he'd been the survival point of someone's universe as Jamie had clung to him, asking no more of him than that he be there. Normally protectiveness was an emotion virtually unknown to Loxton; there was no one in his life more important than himself.

  
Monroe caught him on his way back into the building to write up his report - and stunned him with a faint word of praise for his handling of the boy. Praise from Monroe was rare enough to lighten Loxton's mood a bit - at least until he reached the canteen.

"What - no pram?" Quinnan hooted. "You're going to make a great mum, you know."

"Only if he has implants," threw in Stamp, miming with a couple of bread rolls.

"Very funny, mate," said Loxton, with Mancunian accent more pronounced than usual. "Now sod off."

Coming in for late turn the next day a piece of paper was sticking out of Loxton's locker. Stamp, grinning at his elbow, was the obvious culprit. Unfolded, it was the front page from a newspaper; with Jamie sitting cross-legged on his hospital bed, eyes avoiding the camera lens.

"Your pin-up boy," Stamp smirked.

Loxton crumpled the paper and threw it at Stamp, slammed his locker shut and pushed his way out of the room past a grinning Jarvis and Garfield.

  
Loxton hung back as the relief left the LIO.

"Sarge?"

Cryer stopped, shifted a clipboard under his arm, and turned to face him.

"That kid yesterday. What's happening to him? Now his old man is dead?"

"Early turn were able to contact his mother. She's married again, lives up near Manchester. Apparently they came from up there. Young Jamie probably recognized your accent."

Loxton nodded, both reluctant and willing to accept such a simple explanation for the bond he'd felt with the lad. Cryer had paused for a moment and was looking consideringly at him. Young constables more than half-believed he could see your soul when he looked at you like that. Older PCs, DCs and even sergeants found themselves wriggling uncomfortably under that gaze.

"You can go and pick her up from Euston, if you like. Take her up to the hospital. Get a statement."

"Right, Sarge."

Loxton glanced curiously at the woman sitting beside him. She was a few years older than he was - mid thirties he guessed. Well made-up and fussily dressed she didn't seem exactly desolate at her ex hopping off. Aware of his interest she smoothed her skirt over her thighs and draped darkly varnished nails over one of her knees.

"So you found my Jamie, then?"

"Yeah," said Loxton, concentrating very ostensibly on the traffic. What was the kid doing with his dad if she was so concerned? Slags who didn't look after their kids were high on Loxton's hate list. She was rabbiting on now about what a shock it had been. Loxton swung the car thankfully into the hospital driveway and eased the car into a tightish parking space - with any luck she'd ladder her stockings. He got out and began to head for the children's wards without waiting for her to extricate herself. 

Jamie looked as fragile and withdrawn as he had in the papers.

"Hello, Jamie," Loxton said gruffly.

Something changed in the child's face and he looked up at Loxton. Their eyes met and Loxton started to reach for him. His mother clattered in then, though, slightly breathless and heels slipping on the floor in her rush.

"Jamie," she sobbed and pounced on him. Hugging him she spun around. "Oh, my baby!"

Loxton looked past her - and past Jamie's face, puckering to cry.

"I'll be outside when you're ready to give me that statement, luv."

Jamie's wails were all too audible in the corridor and Loxton dug out a much folded form guide to study. The wails sharpened into screams and Loxton refolded his paper meticulously, smoothing each fold as though it mattered. A do-gooder like Ackland or even Stringer might have gone in there but it was no part of his job. What was he supposed to say - look, you stupid cow, he doesn't like you? The kid had better learn to like her or at least pretend. God knows you didn't have to like your family but pretending to could make your life a little easier. Loxton looked down to discover he'd torn the folded paper. With a mirthless smile he dropped it into the bin beside him. After a moment he pulled out a flier for the 'Children as Victims' course. He folded it into neat sharp folds then tore it slowly and deliberately to pieces. Dropping it also into the bin Loxton leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.  



End file.
